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. 2016 Aug 16:7:12459.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms12459.

Impacts of neonicotinoid use on long-term population changes in wild bees in England

Ben A Woodcock  1 , Nicholas J B Isaac  1 , James M Bullock  1 , David B Roy  1 , David G Garthwaite  2 , Andrew Crowe  2 , Richard F Pywell  1
Affiliations

Impacts of neonicotinoid use on long-term population changes in wild bees in England

Ben A Woodcock et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Wild bee declines have been ascribed in part to neonicotinoid insecticides. While short-term laboratory studies on commercially bred species (principally honeybees and bumblebees) have identified sub-lethal effects, there is no strong evidence linking these insecticides to losses of the majority of wild bee species. We relate 18 years of UK national wild bee distribution data for 62 species to amounts of neonicotinoid use in oilseed rape. Using a multi-species dynamic Bayesian occupancy analysis, we find evidence of increased population extinction rates in response to neonicotinoid seed treatment use on oilseed rape. Species foraging on oilseed rape benefit from the cover of this crop, but were on average three times more negatively affected by exposure to neonicotinoids than non-crop foragers. Our results suggest that sub-lethal effects of neonicotinoids could scale up to cause losses of bee biodiversity. Restrictions on neonicotinoid use may reduce population declines.

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Conflict of interest statement

R.F.P., J.M.B. and B.A.W. are currently funded by Syngenta and Bayer CropScience to perform a large-scale field study investigating the impacts of neonicotinoid insecticides on honeybees. This research presented in this paper was not funded by either company, nor were they consulted about this analysis and interpretation.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. The grid cells from which bee species distributional data were derived.
These were used to assess the response of individual species to oilseed rape cover, neonicotinoid exposure and the FII index. All data were derived from the Bees, Ants and Wasps Recording Scheme. Scotland and Ireland were not included in the analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Posterior distributions for the effect sizes describing wild bee population persistence in England.
The posterior distributions show the probability of parameter estimates explaining wild bee population persistence for (a) neonicotinoid dose rate, (b) oilseed rape area and (c) the foliar insecticide index. Posterior distributions for oilseed rape foraging and non-foraging wild bee species are shown in blue and red respectively. Mean probabilities below zero suggest negative effects of these environmental factors. Supplementary Fig. 1 provides the precision for these parameter estimates.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Estimates of the net effect of neonicotinoid exposure on wild bee species that forage on oilseed rape.
Species population persistence trajectories are based on fitted values from individual species models (red line) and are compared with an idealized model in which no neonicotinoids were applied following their first widespread use in 2002 (blue line). Shaded areas show 95% credible intervals.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Estimates of the net effect of neonicotinoid exposure on wild bee species that do not forage on oilseed rape.
Species population persistence trajectories are based on fitted values from individual species models (red line) and are compared with an idealized model in which no neonicotinoids were applied following their first widespread use in 2002 (blue line). Shaded areas show 95% credible intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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